January Meme: The book I would most like to see filmed / converted to s TV serie
Which ffutures wanted to know. There's one answer I can't give due to Darth Real Life, but my next answer is: Barbara Hambly's Benjamin January series of mystery novels, starting with A Free Man of Colour. And I want a tv series adaptation, with a good budget so we can have great costumes and a plausible mid 19th century New Orleans (and Paris for the flashbacks). Our leading man and two thirds of the regular cast are people of colour (the white regulars being Abishag Shaw, Hannibal, and in the later novels/seasons Henri and Chloe), and as this is a huge plot point in every single case, you can't change it, so the series would automatically provide excellent roles and regular income for poc actors.
Now I'm not sure whether it should be one or two books per season, I suppose that depends on the books. Most, though not all, have important character developments going on with the regular cast, though should the tv version decide to skip some of the novels in terms of the main case of the novel in question, I hope they'll remember to let the character stuff happen in the background of another case regardless. And it really needs to be a tv series, not a movie, because there's no way to do justice to the complicated web of relationships that unfold otherwise. Ben and his family alone! A movie would probably make caricatures out of Dominique and Livia, though for opposite reasons, if it wouldn't soften Livia altogether, and would introduce Rose right away, when I think it was a good thing Barbara Hambly waited until the second novel, when everyone else's introductions have already happened and Rose has more breathing space, so to speak.
Another danger would be that they'd cut Ben's backstory with Ayesha. Which I really hope they wouldn't, because I have a soft spot for stories in which someone who has lost a much loved partner gets to the point where they can live and love again, and neither the second nor the first love are treated as superior, both are valued by the narrative and the character, it's not a competition. So my ideal adaptation would, like the novels, include Ayesha as a post mortem character, so to speak, via flashbacks, not right from the get go, though there would be some hints and dialogue references, but unfolding with the seasons.
Since Ben is not just a doctor but a musician by trade (and the later is in fact how he makes his living in New Orleans when he returns from Paris), I would hope that either the actor playing him leans how to face it convincingly and we have a good musician filling in the performance parts, or we luck out with an actor who can play the piano. (Ditto with Hannibal and the violin.) In any case, this brings me to the soundtrack. Now I've seen enough shows and films where they do something interesting with modern music in a historical setting to know it's doable, but again, Ben, our leading character, is a musician as well as a doctor, and this is often very plot relevant, so I would love a soundtrack reflecting both the operas and symphonies of the era and the emerging black music. Come on, New Orleans is our main setting!
In conclusion: Apple+, since you've seduced me into paying for you by various of your shows, you should make this your next costly project!
The other days
Now I'm not sure whether it should be one or two books per season, I suppose that depends on the books. Most, though not all, have important character developments going on with the regular cast, though should the tv version decide to skip some of the novels in terms of the main case of the novel in question, I hope they'll remember to let the character stuff happen in the background of another case regardless. And it really needs to be a tv series, not a movie, because there's no way to do justice to the complicated web of relationships that unfold otherwise. Ben and his family alone! A movie would probably make caricatures out of Dominique and Livia, though for opposite reasons, if it wouldn't soften Livia altogether, and would introduce Rose right away, when I think it was a good thing Barbara Hambly waited until the second novel, when everyone else's introductions have already happened and Rose has more breathing space, so to speak.
Another danger would be that they'd cut Ben's backstory with Ayesha. Which I really hope they wouldn't, because I have a soft spot for stories in which someone who has lost a much loved partner gets to the point where they can live and love again, and neither the second nor the first love are treated as superior, both are valued by the narrative and the character, it's not a competition. So my ideal adaptation would, like the novels, include Ayesha as a post mortem character, so to speak, via flashbacks, not right from the get go, though there would be some hints and dialogue references, but unfolding with the seasons.
Since Ben is not just a doctor but a musician by trade (and the later is in fact how he makes his living in New Orleans when he returns from Paris), I would hope that either the actor playing him leans how to face it convincingly and we have a good musician filling in the performance parts, or we luck out with an actor who can play the piano. (Ditto with Hannibal and the violin.) In any case, this brings me to the soundtrack. Now I've seen enough shows and films where they do something interesting with modern music in a historical setting to know it's doable, but again, Ben, our leading character, is a musician as well as a doctor, and this is often very plot relevant, so I would love a soundtrack reflecting both the operas and symphonies of the era and the emerging black music. Come on, New Orleans is our main setting!
In conclusion: Apple+, since you've seduced me into paying for you by various of your shows, you should make this your next costly project!
The other days